U.S. group leads seminar on domestic violence

Domestic abuse has become a major social problem in Belize. With this in mind Haven House—a shelter for battered women—with support from the Women’s Department and the Belize Michigan Partners, has organised a seminar on domestic violence and sexual assault. The event will be facilitated by two trainers from the LACASA organisation in Michigan, which also deals with these kinds of issues. Dorla Rosado is the Executive Director of Haven House.

Dorla Rosado, Executive Director, Haven House
“We know that in Michigan, because LACASA is very successful at what they’re doing, we wanted to have them to come and share with us how they do and also to help us to do better networking to have a better understanding of domestic violence and how we can really increase our activities to eliminate domestic violence in Belize.”

Marion Ali, Reporting
For the next two weeks, the facilitators will be engaged with several key organisations.

Janice Watkins, Programme Coordinator, Belize Michigan Partners
“They’re going to be giving a lot of information that those resources can use. The police, clergy, people in education, people at the hospital; the service providers that would probably come in contact with domestic violence first and give them to opportunity to go over to the Women’s Department and find out where they can go, where the resources are.”

Marion Ali
“How do you feel that women are not using the resources that are already available to them?”

Janice Watkins
“Women have a lot of reasons for not using those resources. When women are battered a lot of times they worry about financially can they leave, will their partner change—maybe if they are better behaved their partner will change, family pressures, church pressures, ‘til death do us part does not mean until your death and so they need to know that there is a way to lead, there is a process.”

Today the facilitators had lunch with their partners and the media. During the brief time, they discovered that there are some interesting differences between the Belize and Michigan settings.

Kandy Johnes-Guerin, Public Relations Officer, LACASA
“You’ve got a lot of different departments here that are different than what we have in that States. As far as departments of government, the way that the police systems work, the way that the hospital systems work, and really all of the people that would be immediate responders to domestic violence. It’s going to be very fun and very engaging to work with everybody to try to create a community network for everyone.”
But because domestic violence takes place in different communities across the globe, the Women’s Department’s Icilda Humes, says they will also focus on the difference of cultures.

Icilda Humes, Coordinator, Women’s Department
“Theoretically the issues are the same, but practically when we put it into the local context there needs to be certain things that presenters, that advocates coming from other countries need to be familiar with so they can be able to appreciate the differences that exist and the issues that exist and the implications that domestic violence have on our Belize society.”

Marion Ali
“What would we be looking at in particular to compare with these ladies coming in from Michigan?”

Icilda Humes
“Well what we did today, we sat down we had a brainstorming session because like I said earlier the theory is the same but the practical is different. What we have found is that there are various reasons in Belize why women chose to stay in domestic violence situations. For instance we might here a lot of women saying man shortage deh da Belize.”

The seminars will take place from October eighth to eleventh. Over the next week the ladies will also visit with women’s groups in rural communities.